‘Saric has done so. Lujan will be organizing some contests at arms among the warriors.’ Nacoya whipped open the screen to Mara’s chambers, and rallied half a score of maids and servants. ‘Bath water,’ she rapped out. ‘And something light and comfortable for the mistress to put on afterwards.’
Mara stood with her arms woodenly outstretched as her attendants unfastened the wood-peg and cord-loop fasteners of her formal robe. ‘This is impossible!’ she exclaimed. ‘The time is all wrong.’
Nacoya clicked her tongue. ‘The Shinzawai are an ancient family, with honours to equal most, but their part in the aborted attempt to force peace upon the Empire . . .’
Bemused by this switch to hardcore politics, Mara stepped out of the heavy robe. She moved mechanically into the cool bath prepared by her servants, and sat shivering in reaction as two maids sponged her back. ‘What’s the matter with me? Why can’t I just tell him no and put the issue from my mind?’
Nacoya answered obliquely. ‘Daughter, there is no sure way to rule the heart.’
‘My heart is ndt in this!’ Mara fired back, with a sharpness that itself was a contradiction. ‘What is Hokanu to me but a means to an end?’
The First Adviser seated herself on a cushion and wrapped gnarled fingers around her knees. She said nothing, while Mara endured a bath she did not enjoy. She arose at the appropriate moment and stepped out of the water, and stood with a scowl while her maids towelled her dry.
Nacoya did not break silence until another maid arrived with a light lounging robe. ‘Mistress, the Shinzawai have been among the most honourable families in the Empire in my memory and the memory of my father. The old Lord, Shatai, Kamatsu’s father, was Warchief of the Kanazawai when a Keda Lord last sat upon the Warlord’s throne. And no one has ever heard of either Shinzawai Lord breaking a bond. Their honour is unquestioned.’
Mara knew all this. As the maids tied her robe, she regarded her former nurse with bitten-back exasperation. ‘But their position at the moment is questionable.’
‘Many resentments linger since the failed peace and the Night of the Bloody Swords,’ Nacoya agreed. ‘Many of the families left grieving insist that murder would never have happened had the Blue Wheel and, especially, the Shinzawai not been at the heart of the Emperor’s plottings.’
But Mara did not need reminding that it was only because so many were injured and everyone was being cautious that no one had sought retribution upon the Shinzawai. To bind her family to them through a marriage would be to add names to her list of dangerous enemies.
No, Mara decided, as Nacoya’s obvious reasoning led her from mixed emotions to clear thought. The heart of the matter was another thing altogether. Hokanu was attractive enough; her deep involvement with Kevin added painful confusion, yet she had never fooled herself into the false hope that love could replace a slave with a husband. Her turmoil stemmed from another truth: that she was loath to yield control of her life to any Ruling Lord. Buntokapi’s brief tenure had left only ugly memories, but that was not all.
Mara sighed and stared through the opened screen into the garden. The day was drawing on, and long shadows striped the path between the akasi rows. The rich green land that had been her father’s, and her ancestors’ before his, had prospered well over the years since a young girl came into an inheritance beyond her years and experience. In the light of her successes, Mara examined a deeper truth, altogether less tangled than any conflict in her life, past or present. After a long minute she said to Nacoya, ‘Thank you for your counsel. You may go now.’
As the old woman bowed and departed, Mara reflected. So many events in her life were the result of her being Ruling Lady. Yet the duties, the awesome responsibility, even the danger that came her way – these things were not the fearful burden they had appeared on the day she had left Lashima’s temple. Since she had assumed the Acoma mantle, she had come to enjoy her power, to revel in pitting her wits against the machinations of the Great Game. These things gave her freedom to pursue new ideas. What would it be like to leave the decisions to others? she wondered. Could she be as content collecting li birds, ornamenting sitting rooms, or matchmaking as other ladies were? Women held power in their own right, sometimes with impressive result. Could she do as Isashani of the Xacatecas, and take as much satisfaction in byplay behind the scenes as she did now in the seat of unquestioned command?
Mara sighed again.
That moment a shadow fell across the screen that led from the garden. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’ A familiar voice intruded from beyond.
Mara glanced up to find Kevin watching her, a wry grin on his face.
He voiced an opinion as he always did, without waiting for her invitation. ‘You’re wondering what it would be like to take a rest and let this young warrior of the Shinzawai run things.’
Startled to laughter, Mara said, ‘You . . . monster!’